
En3 

.S7Z 



"^ 



E 423 
.S72 
Copy 1 



MR,. SOULE'S SPEECH. 



AT OPELOUSAS, LOUISIANA 




DELIVERED 



ON THE 6^« OF SEPTEMBER 1851. 



Victrix causa iliis piacuit; sed victa. . .-Catoni ! 

LUGANUS. 

'J will not join in congratulations on misfortune and disgrace. I cannot concur 
in a vile and servile address, which approves and endeavours to sanctify the 
monstrous measures, which have heaped disgrace and misfortune upon us. 
This, my-lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment! It is no timefor adulation. 
The smoothness of jSattery cannot now avail ; cannot save us in this rugged 
and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the Throne in the language 
of truth ; — we must dispel the delusion and the darkness which envelop it ; 
and display in its full danger and true colors, the ruin that is brought to our 
doors." 

IjORd CHATHAM, on the Amf.rican War. 



•-.••S^ Wf 



^^m 




NEW-ORLEANS: 

PRINTED BY J. T. SOLIJe, 137, CHARTRKS STREET 

\ 

1851. 



t" 



\ 



«J o me c) ecMle ot •zSouiAiawa. 

The following speech, delivered at Opelousas, on the B'ft of Septem- 
ber instant, at the request of a number of my friends and fellow citizens 
of St-Landry, is respectfully submitted to your impartial consideration 
and judgment, in reference to my Senatorial course on the great questions 
•which have so much agitated the country, and to the reasons and motives 
v>kich prompted it. 

New-Orleans, September ^2d, 1861, 

PIERRE SOULfe 






MR. SOULE'S SPEECH, 



■C- AT OPELOUSAS. 

/ ^ The acclamations that welcome me to these hustings, speak out, 

s* if I mistake them not, your anxiety to hear, that you may fairly judge of 

"""^ them, the opinions of one whose course, in the Councils of the Nation, 

^•^ has been animadverted upon, in certain portions of the State, by design- 

\^ ing political opponents and by reckless party defamers, as being not only 

^ dangerous, but actually hostile to your peace, to your dignity and to your 

^ interests. 

Those opinions, it can no more be my desire than it is in my power 
to conceal from you. They belong to the history of the country : they 
'' were formed upon deep and solemn deliberation ; they had and still re- 

tain the sanction of my best judgment, and are spread out, accessible to 
all, upon the leaves of that truthful and impressive journal, where, for 
grave and weighty reasons, no doubt, the opinions and acts of your public 
men are faithfully registered and preserved. Most readily therefore 
shall I make them the theme ot my discourse to you and plead in their 
vindication the cause to which they owe their origin, and indeed all 
their importance. 

It is a cause in which we have all an equal stake, Whigs as well as 
Democrats ; — a cause involving in its issues not only our rank and con- 
dition in the great Confederacy which holds the American States to- 
gether, but the very existence of that Confederacy itself, and, to some 
extent, the destinies of a whole world. 

Such a cause we should approach in a proper spirit. I shall address 
myself to it, with a mind unbiassed, either by party feelings or by consi- 
derations of private concernment. Let me hope that I shall find in this 
audience neither impatient nor prejudiced hearers, but that, on the con- 
trary, I shall be listened to with considerate and uninternipted attention. 



— 4 — 

When I was honored with the seat which 1 now hold in the Senate 
of the United States, we were just emerging from the war which Mex- 
co's folly and stubbornness had brought upon us and most needlessly 
prolonged. 

By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, an almost boundless empire of ter- 
ritory, with a vast border of ocean, had been added to our already gigantic 
possessions. We were about to dispose of the conquest we had achieved, 
and to distribute and regulate the increase of political influence and 
power which every section of country was to derive from it. We, of 
the South, had been participants in the struggle through which it 
had been accomplished, to the fullest extent of our ressources and 
abilities. W^ehad contributed by far the largest proportion of the fbrc(\s 
engaged in the war ; two-thirds of the supplies which had maintained 
them, and in the touching and sadly eloquent language of a most eminent 
writer and statesman, * ^^four-fifths of the graves !" We, of course 
jn-esumed that we would also be permitted to participate in the fruits of 
victory. But the North, who, before they were secured, had denounced 
our acquisitions as a nefarious and monstrous spoliation and plunder, 
now claimed them all to herself, and insisted that the South should not 
have a foothold on that soil which she had so strenuously and so effi- 
ciently contributed to wrest from the enemy, and which was still moist 
with the blood of her braves and whitened with the bones of her dead. 

Mr. Polk's administration was drawing to a close. Already had the 
two great national parties pre-essaycd their Richmonds in the field. 
The Presidential canvass was soon to begin, and the contest opened 
upon what principles should prevail in the organization of the Territo- 
ries acquired from Mexico. Were they to be dedicated exclusively to 
freesoil, or was the South to be allowed any share in them ? Such was 
the question mooted from one end of the country to the other, and in no 
part of it with a fiercer and a more indomitable spirit than in Louisiana, 
Avhere ** each party claimed for the candidate of its choice the security 
which his election was to give the South that her rights would be pro- 
tected, and her interests safegarded. War to the knife was, during the 
whole contest, denounced against all sorts of Provisos, against all at- 
tempts at excluding us from the partition about to be eflfected. What 
did we mean then? What were we after? Did we, in imitation of 
those gallant Bostonians of 1775, intend to fight for some empty phrase, 
for '^Jess than a ■praamhh ?" W^as it to save our sight from a few inno- 

" Hon Aeth Barton, in one of his R.iiiciolph's ejusllcs, 
■ ■ See Appcndixl tVos. 1 and 2. 



cuoiis words in a law of Congress, that we vented so much wrath and 
trumped up such menacing resolutions ? No sirs, no sirs ; — it was for 
something more grave, more substantial, more momentous, that we en- 
gaged in the struggle ; — we engaged in it to vindicate our rights as 
sovereign communities, and to assert our rank as equals in the great 
Confederacy of which we were members. Such was the object, the 
boon for which, at one time, we all joined in a loud and undivided protes- 
tation against the usurpations with which the North was threatening 
the South. 

We had ceased to wield in Congress, that influence which, 
in days gone by, had enabled us to protect ourselves against un- 
equal and oppressive legislation. Out of the thirty States of Avhich the 
Union consisted, but fourteen could be claimed as being in the interest 
of the South. We had hardly power enough to check the incessant in- 
vasion which the Northern majority was committing upon our rights and 
franchises through insulting agitation and unsparing abuse, and we were 
fast becoming a feeble and impotent minority ; and, while the hostility 
at the North was increasing with our growing weakness, we had in 
prospect an immense territory thrown open to the grasp of 
freesoilism, out of which it might carve new sovereignties to 
overpower us, if we should, at any future time, ever attempt to resist its 
encroachments and to put a stop to its usurpations. Such was our con- 
dition in 1848. 

— But, we then stood up like men, and like men, durst assert our 
rights and claim our due. And, mark hoAV the administration that 
controled the Government was emboldened and nerved by the 
stand we took and the front we opposed to the insulting pretentions 
of the North. The Mexican commissioners who were empowered 
to treat with the United States for peace, had been instructed by their 
Government to require that " The United States should bind them- 
selves not to permit slavery to be established in the territories ceded 
by the treaty ;" and our minister (Mr. Trist) was solicited, intreated, 
to admit the restriction among the other clauses of the treaty. Here is 
what Mr. Trist says ( in his correspondance with the Government at 
Washington ) of his conference with the Mexican commissioners in 
relation to this subject : " Our conversation was perfectly frank and 
no less friendly ; and the more effective upon their minds, inasmuch 
as I was enabled to say with perfect sincerity, that although ihoir 
impressions respecting the practical effect of slavery in the United 
States were, I had no doubt, entirely erroneous, yet there was piobablv 



_ 6 — 

no diference between my individual views and sentimenta on slavery, 
considered in itself, and those which they entertained. I concluded by 
assuring them that the mention of the subject in any treaty to which 
the United States were a party was an absolute impossibility ; that no 
President of the United States would dare to present any such treaty to 
the Senate ; and that if it were in their power to offer me the jvhole 
territory described in our projet increased tenfold in value, and, in 
addition to that, covered afoot thick all over with pure gold, upon the 
single condition that slavery should be excluded therefrom, I could not 
entertain the offer for a moment, nor think even of communicating it to 
Waslwigion." * 

Nor was this demonstration confined to the attitude thus assumed 
by our Minister, in the negociations that brought about the treaty of 
peace. 

When the treaty itself came before the American Senate for ratifi- 
cation, the attempt was renewed to insert in it the restriction proposed 
by Mexico; but it failed most signally, the proposition obtaining but a 
vote of fifteen yeas out of a Senate of sixty ! 

Had we but maintained ourselves in the proud position which w© 
then occupied, we would still be with our rights, the equals of our 
partners, and not what it is now proposed we should become, uncom- 
plaining and truckling submissionists, the objects of the mocking 
jeei-s and taunting insults of aggressive and arrogant Free-Soilism. 

A new President, in the mean while, had been inducted into the 
Executive Chair. Afier the unsuccessful effort tried, at a previous 
session, to place the whole controversy in the hands of the Judicial 
Department of the Government, an attempt was now made to clothe 
the President with all necessary powers to organize Governments in 
the newly acquired territories. The measure was defeated through 
the President's own friends. But, the authority which the party 
in power had refused for the President, when tendered to him by the 
South, in a manner that would have engaged his responsability, was 
soon assumed and exerted without the least shadow of legislative sanc- 
tion ; and, through its exercise, a handful of adventurers, most of whom 
had not a three months residence in the territories, was enabled to 
wrest from the common domain upwards of one hundred and fifty-three 
thousand square miles of soil, bordering on nine hundred miles of Ocean, 
and to extend over them the very proviso which had so menacingly 
aroused the public spirit at the South. 

• Canfi(i''iitial despntoh fNo 15) of Mr Trisl. to the Department of Stats 



— 7 — 

Tlio illegitimacy of the influence through whicli this had beeir 
effected ; — the spoliation committed on the slaveholding States, under 
the behests of a convention organised by a salaried military officer of 
the General Government; the absence of all guaranty that might pro- 
tect the public domain ; the want of all authority in men, who owed 
allegiance to other political communities, to institute a State within 
territories still under the control and dependency of the United States ; 
the scandal of a Constitution covering with its jurisdiction regions not 
even explored by the people who framed it, and already held in the 
political possession of another people, all that was to be disregard- 
ed, and the act of spoliation to be unblushingly consummated under 
the sanction of Congress. 

But the Southern Lion was not yet slumbering ; and it became neces- 
sary to lull him into deceitful dreams, during which his claws might be 
chopped off and his teeth plucked out. 

It was at this juncture that one, truly great among the greatest by his 
bright intellect, his unparalleled dexterity and his transcendent powers of 
persuasion, but whose every triumph in our sectional strifes has been a 
disaster to the South, stood forth between the two contending parties, as 
a Pacificator, and from the folds of his senatorial robe let fall the Com- 
promise. It went the rounds of every portion of the country, tossed 
about between the jubilees of the North and the curses of the whole 
South. 

The measures which it embraced were denounced in the very hall 
of the Senate as proffering but deception and plunder to the South; as 
giving all to one side and nothing to the other; — as being hut stone, though 
held out as bread; — as worse than nothing ; — as leaving na way for 
getting round the subject, or for fixing terms of future concessions or of 
present Compromise. * 

Upon the announcement of those measures, there was a 
universal shout of vexation and revolt, from the Potomac to the 
Rio del Norte, which caused the North to pause, and might have saved 
us, had we but held our breath a little longer. The whole South was 
put in commotion ; and you might hear her threats and execrations as the 
hoarse roaring of a storm raging at a distance. Just consider, the South 
was asked to surrender all her pretentions and claims to that territory 
in the conquest of which she had wasted so much blood and treasure. 
California was to be admitted as a free State, organized though she 
had been under the rod of a military commandant, rxorcising powers 

• Mr Downs in his speeches of January 29t!i anil February ISth !Sr<). 



that Congress alone had a right to exercise, and coming as slie did, with 
the Wilmoi Proviso in her Constitution staring us in the face ; — Texa.-^ 
was to be dismembered and the South to be taxed in her full share of 
•SlO.000,000 for being despoiled of one -half of ivhat she had gained by 
the admission of that State into the Union; * — The question of thepros- 
spective abolition of slavery throughout the territories of the United 
States, and ultimately in the slaveholding States themselves, was to be 
tested through the bill abolishing the slave trade in the District of Co- 
lumbia, by which Congress assumes and actually exercises the power of 
declaring a slave free, because of his master attempting to sell him in the 
said district; — The Territories of Utah and New Mexico Avere to be 
organized without any facultative clause that might enable their legisla- 
tive councils to afford protection to all species of property which, by the 
Constitution, could rightfully be transferred thither,** and under the as- 
surance expressed by repeated votes, and sanctioned by solemn declara- 
tions, that slavery was actually excluded from them through the effects 
of the Mexican Proviso... — And the great boon, which, for all these sur- 
renders, the South was to receive, consisted in the enactment of a law 
under whose authority eight or ten fugitive slaves, at the cost of some 
$8,000 or $10,000, might be delivered back to their masters, as an in- 
demnity for the loss of upwards of thirty thousand others, who still grace 
with their presence abolition conventions, and parade insultingly in the 
thoroughfares of the North ! 

Such Avas the compact of conciliation and peace which the North was 
tendering to us. It was forced upon us by the anti slavery power of the 
North and North- West, aided and abetted l|y those of the South who had 
been the loudest in their condemnation of it, when it first made its ap- 
pearance, and the most bitter in assailing its original promoters. 

But let us see what judgment that iniquitous scheme has received at 
the hands of its main defenders ; and let us measure, through that judg- 
ment, the degradation to which it has doomed the slaveholding States. 

In his late speech, at Trinity, General Downs calls it a choice of evils. 
Mr. Clay had already told us that "63/ it, he North had got almost every 
thing and the South nothing but her honor." And Mr. Webster, with that 
manliness that characterizes his language, admits that while "//te North 
rains most intensely desirable objects," such as the annexation of Califor- 
nia as a free State, the quieting of the New Mexican question, and 
of the Texan boundary, the separation of New Mexico from Texas, 
and the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia . . . 

' Mr. Downs, in his speech of February 18ih, 1850. 

■ • Terms of one of the Amendmenis that were rejected. 



— 9 — 

the South, ah ! the South "gains an acceptable and satistKctoiy mode for 
reclaiming her fugitive slaves ; — but as to the territorial acquisitions, he 
feels bound in candor to say, that taking Maryland for example, a« 
one of the South, Maryland gains what. Massachusetts loses, — that is 
Nothing !" 

And yet such is the settlement held out to you as being perfectly 
fair, perfectly just, perfectly honorable to the South, and against 
which no Southerner must open his lips in either disappointment or 
complaint, and no man must defend himself for having resisted it in 
the national council, however, whenever, and wherever assailed I 

When on the 21st of December 1848, Mr. Gott of New York 
presented a resolution "instructing the Committee on the District of 
Columbia to report SihiW prohibiting the slave trade in said District," 
and obtained on it the sanction of the House, the whole South was 
thrown into the most turbulent and furious excitement. 

The Washington Union denounced the measure as "another blow" 
at the South, and warned the North that "the South would not submit." 

The New Orleans Picayune said : "This is such a direct meddling 
with the right of "property of the citizens of the District, and so bold a 
step towards interference with the rights of the States, that the South 
must NECESSARILY make an issue on it. The aggressive spirit of 
northern abolitionism should be met here, and the consequences 

OF A collision IN ALL THEIR BREADTH AND DEPTH STAKED UPON IT." 

And the Legislature of Virginia, by a majority of 117 to 13 in the 
House, and of 27 to 3 in the Senate, passed a set of resolutions of 
which the following is one :, "Resolved — That we regard the passage 
of a Law by the Congress of the U, S. abolishing slavery, or the slave 
trade, in the District of Columbia, as a direct attack on the institutions 
of the Southern States, to be resisted at all hazards." The 
Washington Union alluding to these bold professions said : that Vir- 
ginia wonld maintain her resolutions "by her acts". — What space, 
I ask, have we been traveling, since that time, that we aie so far off 
the track we then so proudly rode in? 

But you may demand to know what motives, what influences could 
have induced those Southern members who gave the Compromise such 
a zealous support, and among others, Gen. Downs, to sustain that 
measure? I have propounded the (juestion to myself again and again ; 
and it was but lately that I found an answer to it in the speech which 
my distinguished colleague delivered in New York, in December last. 
"Convinced at Washington", says he, "by the patriotism of their 
Representatives, that the Northern people were sound, I pledged my- 

2 



— 10 — 

SELF to the support of the Compromise." Such were the promptings 
under which Gen. Downs associated himself with the friends of that 
measure. Let us see now upon what data rested his conviction of the 
soundness of the Northern people, as vouchsafed by the patriotism of 
their Representatives : What did he mean by the North and by the 
NortKs Representatives? We have it from his own lips. He tells us 
in the same speech that "os New York goes, so goes the North ; as 
the North goes, so goes the South, and in the end we shall all go to- 
gether.'^ New York, then, was to be the great criterion, and the pa- 
triotism of her Representatives the unerring sign of the soundness of 
the people at the North. And yet, on every resolution offensive to the 
South which was introduced in the House from the 13th of December 
1848 to the 4th of February 1850, we find the New York Representa- 
tives in mass, siding invariably with our enemies, and warring 
against us ! (*) Oh the fatal delusion ! It was that delusion that 
brought him to tell the Southern people "that abolitionism was no 
longer to be preached and practised at the North ; that aggression 
upon them was put an end to from that quarter." (**) — Let us see, let 
us see. how the North has redeemed the pledges thus handsomely com- 
mended by a Southern Senator : 

I have shown you what a proud position we held as long as we 
stood firm and erect like men ; let me show you now, with what bold- 
ness of contempt aud scorn we are looked at and spoken of by those 
who, but twelve months ago, courted our favour and seemed almost 
ready to pander to our exigencies. Hear that great colussus ofthe 
North alluding to us, submissive and unexacting as we have show^n 
ourselves to be : "If the South wish any concession from me, they wont 

get it, NOT A hair's breadth of it I have always contended that 

any measure calculated to add to the slave territory of the United States 
was unconstitutional. I would never consent that there be one foot of 
slave territory beyond what the old thirteen States had at the founda- 
tion of the Union. — Never! never! never! !" (***) 

— And, that there might be no mistake, no misconception as to what he 
meant to show of tenderness and good feeling to the South, he, the 
chief of the Cabinet and the Secretary of State of President Fillmore 
goes on, and hesitates not to acknowledge, that, "He regrets extremely 
that slavery exists in the Southern States, and that Congress has no 
power to act upon it f" — Hear you him? Can you be any longer de- 

(•] See Appendix No. 3. 

(**] M. Downs in his New York speech. 

[■") M. Webster in his speech at Buffalo. 



— 11 — 

ceived? Is that clear enough? — Ah ! but h* afterwards corrected the 
latter part of the sentence, or rather approved of the correction made 
upon it by Mr. Botts of Virginia ; and the sentence, as corrected, now 
reads : "I regret extremely that slavery exists in the Southern States ; 
but Congress has no power to act upon it." Very well. But the next 
coming phrase stands uncorrected ; that phrase wherein he expresses 
the hope "That it may be in the dispensation of Providenck 

SOME REMEDY MAY BE FOUND FOR IT !" 

Why, Sirs, we have the secret of these strange boastings. Mr. 
Webster is of the North, and dares avow it, and glories in it, and is 
applauded for it ; while, here, one could hardly claim himself from the 
South without being hissed and lapidated. 

How proudly, how nobly and bravely he exclaims ! "I am a north- 
ern man. I was born at the North, educaled at the North. I know 
five hundred northern men to one southern man. My sympathies, all 
MY sympathies, — my love of liberty for all mankind, of every color, 
are the same as yours. My affections and hopes in that respect are 
exactly like yours. ^' 

And thus is the torch of abolitionism still brandished by the very 
men who had engaged to extinguish it, and the ravings of anti-slavery 
provoked afresh by the most impassioned and most exciting appeals. 
Even the Washington Union, alluding to this speech, forgets its former 
mercies for the great northerner, and gently chides him for thus minis- 
tering to the passions and prejudices of his countrymen. "What need 
had he," says its New Yorkrforrespondent of May 26th, 1851, " What 
need had he to parade his^detestation of slavery, his love of freesoil, 
and his eternal opposition to the admission of slave territory, before a 
people already too much excited to think calmly and vidsely upon such 
subjects? What was it in effect but saying to them, this is all wrong ; 
it is a sin, an evil which must be endured for expedience sake. And 
how many of the class of persons whom he addressed, replied in their 
hearts : Expediency can never make a wrong wright." 

— Abolition is no longer to be preached and practiced ; is it? — And 
aggressions from the North against the South "are put an end to ;" are 
they not? — How bitterly Mr. Webster belies the assertion and exposes 
your credulity ! But this is not all. Read with me from one of the 
August numbers of the New York Tribune : "We are told to leave 
slavery alone ; it is too late in the day, to think of stopping the dis- 
cussion of the subject. It will be discussed; and the best thing is, to 
look at it frankly and sincerely and to say the whole truth about it. 



— 12 ~ 

And WE ARE HAPPY TO SEE IN THE SOUTHERN StATES A GROWING 

NUMBER OF PERSONS who are disposed to treat it in that manner." 

And in another of its numbers of the same month, the same paper 
says : "what madness, what futility to talk of respecting such an act as 
the fugitive slave law! not even a kidnapper nor slave trader can really 
respect it. Humanity and a sense of justice, innate in every heart, im- 
peratively forbid it We do not desire the capture of any fugitive 

slave. How could we or should we? The Constiiution is not altered 
since Millard Fillmore gave Milton Clarke money to aid him in his 
flight from slavery. " 

1 have still higher authority to show how recreant the North shows 
herself to redeem the pledges made in her name by Gen. Downs ; and 
that authority is no less than Mr. Toombs himself; the great Georgia 
unionist and the most prominent and able leader of the Whig party at 
the South. Here is what he says in his letter of acceptance of the 
nomination tendered him to Congress by his party : "TAe anti-slavery 
sentiment is yet a dangerous and formidable element in American poli- 
tics. Its acknowledged exponent is the free soil party; hut it is also 
virulent and dangerous both in the Whig and Democratic party at the 
North. "The Whig party has succombed to it, and it controls the 

ORGANIZATION OF THAT PARTY IN EVERY NON-SLAVE-HOLDING StATE 

IN THE Union. It is thoroughly denationalized and sectionalized by it 
xoill never make another national contest. ^^ 

Thus have I shown that all those assurances, all those pretences, 
under which Southern men had attempted to shelter their defection, 
and to disguise their surrender to freesoilM(bi, were but arrant fallacies, 
things that had but a name, and no base, no marrow, no subs- 
tance. 

It is insisted, however, that we should not disturb the peace and har- 
mony which the compromise has given the cou ntry, nor stir up the 
spirit of the Southern peopl e by reminding them of the wrongs they 
have suffered and of the dangers which still beset them. Ay, we are 
asked to turn our faces from the frightful phantom and to suffer you to 
lie quiet and contented in your humiliation and ruin. I scorn the dastard- 
ly advice. It can, at best, suit a Russian serf or an Austrian minion. Has 
it come to this, that we are unblushingly required to crouch in the dust 
under the feet of our oppressors, lest by looking them in the face and walk 
ing erect by their side, we might move their ire and provoke their lash? I 
fear them not ; nor should you fear them. Just give way to your fears, 
And thrrp i$ no form of menace, no degree of insult, no measure of de- 



— 13 — 

gtadatiuM with which they will not visit you; for "the insolence of the 
oppressor is in proportion to the tameness of the sufferer." 

We are next told that, bad as it is, the compromise, alter all, has ef- 
fected an adjustment of our difficulties, and constitutes a compact which, 
from its very nature, is irrepealable. 

Is it so ? 

Mr. Fillmore clearly did not view it in that light, when, after declaring 
in his message that he regards the measures embraced in it "as a set- 
tlement in principle and substance, as a final settlement, &c." he goes 
on, gently admonishing and recommending adherence to them, ^^until 
time and experience shall demonstrate the necessity of further legisla- 
tion to guard against evasion or ^huse" 

Nor was it so construed by those who signed the Union pledge 
with Messrs. Clay, Foote, and others, when after ostracising politi- 
cally all those who were opposed to it, they nevertheless admit the 
possibility of its being "repealed or altered by the general consent of the 
friends of the measures." 

Nor is it so understood by the Whigs of New York in their compact 
of coalition with the abolitionists of that State, when they give their as- 
sent to the proposition ^Hhat the right of citizens, as voters, is undeniable 
to discuss with a full regard for the rights and interests of all parts of 
the Confederacy, the expediency of such laws (the adjustment laws) 
and the propriety of any of their provisions, and to seek by constitutional 
means their repeal and modi/icatio7i." 

Yet Gen. Downs, referring to that subject, in his speech at Trinity, 
would have you to think ^Hhat if the compromise has had its day and pas- 
sed, you can no more bring it back than you can reverse the wheels of 
time, bring back yesterday or last year.'^ — Page 13. 

However, after thus fixing a character of immutability and perpetuity 
upon it, he chides the Southern members opposed to it, who were of the 
following session of Congress, for not having attempted to remedy the 
evil in the ordinary way. — Page 23. 

But we ought to submit ; — for, says my colleague, "it is the natural 
result of one of the least doubtful of our republican principles that the 
majority must rule and we acquiesce." — Page 23, 

And thus whenever that majority shall have spoken out, be its 
edicts as reckless of the Constitution as we have known them to be, we 
must bow our heads in humble and respectful submission because tht 
majority must rule. Ay, rule it must ; but says the great Pitt : "So ruK 
as not to contradict the common principles that are common to all." 
The majority must rule, was the dictum with which British Minis- 



— 14 — 

ters used to answer the complaints of the American colonies. What, 
submit to evident, undeniable wrong ! We may endure it! Endurance 
implies not consent. But surrender our convictions, our sentiments and 
cower down in silence before the wrong -doer, sinking like slaves be- 
neath the pressure of our sufferings ! Upon my heart and soul, never, 
never! ! ! 

Let me but ask you, what would your revolutionary sires have thought 
of any one who, in the cant of modern submissionism, had told them : 
"The Stamp Bill, the Boston Post Bill, the Bill for transferring political 
delinquents beyond the seas to be tried in a distant land," /tave /md! 
their day and were passed by a majority in the Imperial Parliament, 
and can no more be recalled than you can recall yesterday or last year 7 
The majority must rule and you must acquiesce ? Ah, Sirs, methinks 
I see them striving to compose their muscles and hardly able to suppress 
their indignation. They would have pointed, no doubt, to that noble 
device, on their escutcheon, which was decyphered by Jackson half a 
century afterwards : "We demand nothing but what is right, and 

YIELD to nothing THAT IS WRONG." 

Fellow-citizens, be not mistaken ; — your attitude in this awful crisis 
will determine your future fate ; and, unless it be such as will com- 
mand forbearance on the part of the North, your doom is sealed ; and 
you are destined to be but subjects, humble, abject subjects, in this once 
glorious confederacy of yours ; you may deceive yourselves by vain and 
empty words, you may think you retain your rights, your independence, 
your sovereignty, while you are permitted to send your Senators and 
Representatives to Congress, there to pander to the exactions of your 
northern kings ; you will but retain the shadow of what you were, 
soon to sink beneath your own consciousness of degradation and ruin. 

What will it be but the sad and bitter realisation of the remonstrance 
which, on a memorable occasion (the Missouri Compromise) Mr. Pink- 
ney addressed to the growing arrogance of the North? "You may 
squeeze down a sovereign State to the size of a pigmy, and then, taking 
it between finger and thumb, stick it into some nich of the Union, and 
still continue, by way of mockery, to call it a State. You may waste 
it to a shadow, and still keep it in the society of flesh and blood, an ob- 
ject of scorn and derision ; you may sweat and reduce it to a thing of 
skin and bone, and then show the ominous skeleton beside the ruddy 
and healthful members of the Union, that every one may witness the 
lamentable difference ! ! ! f ! ! " 

I am not for breaking this Confederacy ; I am not for advising this 
State to join in any secession movement which may be made by other 



— 15 — 

States. I stand ready still to endure past wrongs with you ; but I cannot 
bring myself to acknowledge that they are not wrongs, and while I live, 
I shall, with all the energies of my \ung3, protest against them. I wish 
not to discourage you, but to keep you on the watch ; and I sound the 
alarm because I see danger ahead of me. Others may find their inte- 
rest or their pleasure in lulling you into a deep slumber. My mission 
is (while in your service,) to warn you of, and point to, the abyss that 
yawns before you. I would have you at least to equal in dignity that 
Roman slave, Spartacus, whom the sculptor represents as bound down 
in chains, enduring, not submissive, looking at his fetters in sadness, 
but without dejection, and betraying through the sternness of his eye, 
and the impressive pallor of his countenance, the storm that rages with- 
in him and betokens to the oppressor heroic resolves and impend- 
ing disasters. 

Your attitude, in other words, should be considerate, but dignified ; 
forbearing, yet firm and unambiguous ; such as would not authorize the 
North to consider you in the light of willing tools in their hands, and incite 
them to new attempts at oppression and plunder; an attitude that would 
command their respect, and stop them in their career of aggression and 
insult. Such is the attitude which, in my judgment, would alone be- 
hoove you as members of a free, independent and sovereign cummunity. 
But all these are solemn matters, ( as I have long since declared in the 
Senate Chamber of the Union), for your consideration and judgment 
alone ; It is mine, however to defend the share I had in the past action 
of the Senate upon these momentous topics, and to vindicate the motives 
which prompted me in all I then did. 

I might stop here, but for some of you who wish to learn, I have no 
doubt, what my views be with respect to the present state of affairs in 
South Carolina and to the bearing which it may have upon the future 
action of the Southern States : 

South Carolina ! 

Ah ! whatever be her delusions, whatever her fortunes, I cannot but 
respect, and love, and admire her noble daring and her heroism. It 
may be that she is too rash, too precipitate. But is she not the best 
and sole judge of her grievances? I look upon her as upon a wronged 
partner who demands to have his rights acknowledged and secured in 
the partnership, or to withdraw from it. I could not advise you to 
follow in her footsteps ; I would rather urge her to pause and consider. 
Yet whatever be your judgment on the expediency of her course, there 
cannot be two opinions among sensible men as to her substantive and 
absolute right of seceding from the Union, if she rhooses. 



— 16 — 

Sht^ does it, no doubt, at her own peril. But by so doing, she, after 
■all, but exerts her undoubted priviledge as onft of the sovereign con- 
federates. 

The right to secede, is not a right that has no lodgement any where. 
It exists. It constitutes the very essence of sovereignty. It is sove- 
reignty itself. It must he somewhere. It is somewhere. Its assertion 
rent assunder the connexion which bound the British American co- 
lonies to their mother country. It is fully and most emphatically 
implied in the reservation made in the second of the articles of Con- 
federation. It was neither impaired nor abridged, nor surrendered by 
the neAV Constitution ; it is a main attribute of sovereignty, in- 
herent to it, inseparable from it. 

To the constitutional compact, each State acceded in her indepen- 
dent and sovereign capacity, each gave her separate and individual 
ratification, and when any one of them choses to withdraw from it, 
she but does what in all federative compacts, a confederate has an 
indisputable right to do, resume her independent and separate action 
as a sovereign. 

The withdrawing of one State, does not of necessity break the Union 
us to the other States. As long as there remain nine. States adhering 
to it, it stands, it lives ; and a seceding State is, in regard to those that 
remain united, but what North Carolina and Rhode Island were while 
they withheld their ratification, that is to say she is independent of it. 
Such is the doctrine I was taught at the school of the fathers and expo- 
nents of this system of Gevernment ; and I am prepared to show that to 
deny the orthodoxy of that doctrine is to belie history and the great mo- 
numents of past tradition and of living wisdom. 

Mr. Madison, as chairman of a committee of the Virginia Legislature 
in 1800, reporting on the resolution of '98, says : "It appears to your 
committee to be a plain principle, founded in common sense, illustrated 
by common practice, and essential to the nature of compacts, that where 
resort can be had to no tribunal superior to the authority of the parties, 
the parties themselves must be the rightful judge, in the last resort, 
whether the bargain made has been preserved or violated. The Con- 
stitution of the United Statds was formed by the sanction of the States, 
given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and 
dignity, aswell as to the authority of that Constitution, that it rests on this 
legitimate and solid foundation. The States then being the parties to 
the Constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows 
of necessity, that there can ce no tribunal above their authority, to de- 
cide in the last resort whether the compact made by them be violated. 



— 17 — 

and eonsequently, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in 
the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to re- 
quire their interposition." 

In the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Jefferson had already pro- 
claimed the great political axiom "that whenever any form of Govern- 
ment becomes destructive of the ends for which it was organized, it is 
thel'ight, nay, the duty of the people to throw off such Government;" and 
in the resolutions of the Kentucky Legislature in 1798, drafted by him, 
he further maintained "That the several States composing the United 
States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission 
to the General Government." That "the Government created by this 
compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the 
power delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, 
and not the Constitution the measure of its powers ; but that, as in 
all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, 
each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions, 
as of the mode and measure of redress. 

Mr. Hamilton, in one of his papers in the Federalist, admits that if 
the Federal Government should oppress the States, the State Govern- 
ments should be ready to check it by virtue of their inherent power. 
"The State Governments," says he, "will, in all possible contingen 
cies, afford complete security a^ains^ invasion of the public liber - 
ties by the national authority.''^ John Randolph professes the same 
identical views in that resolution which he introduced before the 
people of Charlotte county, wherein he declares, that Virginia "is, and 
of right ought to be, a free, sovereign, and independent State ; . . . 
that she has never parted with the" right to recall the authority delegated 
by her for good and sufficient cause, nor with the right to judge of 
the sufficiency of such cause, and to secede from the Confederacy 
whenever she shall find the benefit exceeded by its evils ; Union 
being the means of securing happiness, and not an end to which it 
shoidd be sacrificed." Daniel Webster in his speech at Capon Springs, 
Va., surrenders his former antipathies and scruples, and avows thai 
"To preserve the Union, we must observe in good faith the Constitution 
and allitsparts. If the Constitution," says he, "be not observed, and if 
its provisions be set aside, the whole of it ceases to be binding. It 
would be absurd to suppose that either the North or the South has 
the power or the right to violate any part of that Constitution, and 
then claim from the other the observance of its provisions. If the 
South were to violate any pail of the Constitution, would the North 



— 18 — 

be any longer bound by it, and if the North were deliberately is 
violate any part of it, would the South be bound any longer to observe 
its obligations? How absurd it would be to suppose, where differ- 
ent parties enter into a compact for certain purposes, that either 
can disregard any one provision and expect the other to observe it." 
and he adds : "I do not hesitate to say and repeat that if the North- 
ern States refuse wilfully and deliberately to carry into effect any part 
of the Constitution, the South would no longer be bound by the com- 
pact. A BARGAIN BROKEN ON ONE SIDE IS BROKEN ON ALL SIDES. 

General Jackson himself, in his counter-proclamation, which 
Mr- Blair of the Globe vouchsafes as exhibiting the mature and fixed 
principles of its author, and not only of the author, but of the great demo- 
cratic party which then recognised them as the foundation of its creed, 
acknowledges that, "in extreme cases of oppression, (every mode of 
Constitutional redress having been sought in vain,) the right resides 
with the people of the several States to organize resistance against such 
oppression, confiding in a good cause, the favor of heaven, and the spirit 
of freemen to vindicate the right." 

But we have, independently of the weight which such names carry 
along with them, the solemn and unmistakeable vote taken on the 19th 
of June 1787, on Mr. Patterson's resolution, by which the Government 
was emphatically denied "the authority to call forth the power of the 
confederated States to enforce and compel obedience to the acts of Con- 
gress or the observance of the treaties made with foreign nations." * 

Where then lies the sovereignty ? Why, where the power rests to 
make and unmake the Government. It resides in the States alone ; for 
they it was that made the Government; and they it is who can alone 
unmake it. If thnn you should ask : "What, if the Federal Government 
were to attempt coercing a seceding State ?" I will say : Believe 
you that the South could calmly look upon the scene and bear un- 
moved that her own dearest rights and principles, blended in the contest, 
were invaded and annihilated ? I cannot doubt but that she would vin- 
dicate them. But this might, in the eyes of some, be rebellion. I have 
an ansAver, and I borrow it from that profound statesman, Burke, whose 
warnings were so slightingly dealt with by the British ministers of that 
day, but whose wisdom has survived their folly, and shamed their blind- 
ness to all eternity : "The Government against which a claim of liberty 
is tantamount to high treason, is a Government to which submission is 

* Appendix Nvo, 4. 



— 19 — 

equivalent to slavery. — Speech on the Reconciliation of the American 
Colonies. 

What, suffer that a co-State, exerting the only reserved right that can 
save her sovereignty, be invaded, sacked, trampled under foot by a fede- 
ral soldiery, stormed by federal guns and ground down by federal mi- 
nions ? But will that bring her back into the Union ? Can you realize 
a Union of States that have to be retained in it by compulsion ? Sup- 
pose there be three, four, six, seven States that withdraw from it, 
will you be able to carry on the Government ? 

Suppose New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts and some 
two or three others should reflise to send representatives to Washington, 
what becomes of Congress ? 

It is madness to speak or think of coercing a State back into th« 
Union. Does not each of us possess, do we not exert whenever we 
please, the right of changing our allegiance by passing from one State 
to the other, or to a foreign State ? Who denies it ? Who doubts it ? 
And pray wherein does a State differ in that respect from each indivi- 
dual member in it ? 

Ay! it were sheer madness on the part of the federal Executive to 
resort to force and violence, to bring a seceding State back into the Con- 
federacy. It was not thus that Gen. Washington acted towards Kentucky 
when the latter boldly threatened to secede unless the navigation of the 
Mississippi were obtained and secured. Our federal rulers should un- 
derstand that, ',by an eternal law. Providence has decreed vexation to 
violence." For, if you will allow me to close with another quotation 
from Burke, "The use of tbrco is but temporary ; it may subdue for a 
moment, but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again ; a7id a 
nation (a State) w not governed which has perpetually to he conquered* 



a- 



i 



APPENDIX. 



-■* 



N" 1. 

"The Oregon Treaty and the Mexican war have placed in our possession 
tractsof country of great extent, and represented as being of boundless fertility. 
That Territory now belongs to us all — to the South as well as to the North .' 
to tlie man that owns a slave as well as to the man that owns a hore, a mnle 
or an ox. Yet, when a question arose as to providing a temporary government 
for these Territories, until the increase of inhabitants might entitle them to 
become States ; Mr, Wilmot, of the House of Representatives, proposed a 
proviso to the effect that slavery should not be allowed to exist in those Terri- 
tories ; or, in other words, that these Territories should be kept by Congress 
exclusively for the use of what are called the Free States ; so that if an inha- 
bitant of New York, Pennsylvania or Oliio should emigrate to this new country, 
liis property, consisting of his household goods, his horses, mules and cattle 
should be protected by the laws ; but if an inhabitant of Louisiana, Alabama or 
Mississippi should desire to emigrate, his property, consisting of his slaves. 
should not only be without protection from the laws, but should be positively 
confiscated, that his slaves should thereby become emancipated and forever 
lost to him. Remember that this Territory belongs to all — that the people of 
the South have paid their full share of treasure, and shed more than their full 
share of blood to acquire it, and that our own State was particukrly conspi- 
cuous for the zeal and gallantry of her sons, and for the public spirit with 
which her treasury had been opened to supply the urgent wants of our army ; 
that all this was urged by able and eloquent orators, who lifted up their voices 
in Congress in our behalf, and that, notwithstanding all that, many were found 
ready to do us the foul wrong, the monstrous injustice and indignity of voting for 
this proviso. God forbid that the pestilentiae influence of tarty shall 

EVER CAUSE THIS QUESTION TO BE CONSIDERED IN ANT BUT ITS TRUE LIGHT BY 
Ainr CITIZEN OF THE SoOTH. " 

From the address of the New Orleans Central Rough and Ready Club to 
the people of Louisiana, signed by J, P. Benjamin, Sah'l. J. Peters, S. S, 
Pbeftiss, Bailie Petxon and others, August 10th 1848. 



H APPENDIX. 

N« 2. 

Mass Meeting on Sunday next, the 16th October instant, La, 
"Every person in favor of the support of the American Union, of our domes- 
tie institutions and all the friends of the extension of slavery in New Mexico 
and California, the two Territories recently conquered and purchased with the 
American blood and with the treasure of our country, are invited to attend 
without distinction of party, &c. , &c.'' 
Parish of St. James, October 10th, 1848. 

J. J. ROMAN, President. 
J. B. TussoN, 



EvARisTE Mire 



C. A. PiERON, Secretary. 



:S 



Vioe-Preaidens. 



N* 3. 

In the House, Dec. 13th, 1848. 
Mr. Palfrey asks leave to intoduce a Bill "to repeal all acts or parts of acta 
of Congress establishing or maintaining slavery, or the slave trade, in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia." 

Yeas— 69. Nays— 82. 
New York members, 23 yeas. 1 nay. 10 not voting. 

On the same day, Mr. Root presents the following resolution : 
"Resolved: That the Committee on Territories be instructed to report to this 
House with as little delay as practicable, a bill or bills providing for the orga- 
nization of the Territories of New Mexico and California, and excluding 
slavery iherefrom'' on motion to lay it on the table : 
Yeas— 80. Nays— 107. 
New York members : yeas — 0. Nays — 30. 4 not voting;. 

In the House, February 4th, 1850. 
Mr. Giddings proposes these resolutions : 

"Resolved: That we hold these truths to be self-evident : That all m&n are 
created equals : that they are endowed by their Creator with the inalienable 
rights of life and liberty, and that Governments are instituted to maintain 
those rights. 

''Resolved : That in constituting Goxemments in any Territory of the United 
States, it is the duty of Congress to secure to all the people thereof, of what- 
vei complexion, the enj6yment of the rights aforesaid." 
On motion to lay on the table : 
Yeas— 104. No— 19. 
New '^York members, 1 yea; 26 nays, 7 not voting. 



APPENDIX. HI 

In the House, Sept. 24th, 1850. 
Mr. Preston King asks leave to introduce a bill with the following section : 
"Be it enacted that slavery is hereby abolished and forever prohibited in the 
District of Columbia." 
On motion to suspend the rules : 
Yeas— 52. Nays— 189. 
New York members: yeas — 18, Nays — 3. 13 not voting. 



N« 4. 

On the 15th of June, 1787, Mr. Patterson, of New Jersey offered (among 
others) a resolution which, after providing that the laws passed, treaties made 
&c., should be the supreme law of the lf>.riu, and that the State judiciaries 
should be bound thereby &c., v/ent on to provide in addition ^Hhai if any Slate, 
or any body of men in uny State, shall oppose or prevent the carrying into execu- 
tion such acts or treaties, the Federal Executive shall be authorized to 

CALL FORTH THE POWER OF THE CONFEDERATED STATES, OR SO MUCH THERE- 
OF A3 MAT BE NECESSARY TO ENFORCE AND COMPEL OBEDIENCE TO SUCH 
ACTS OR AN OBSERVANCE OF SUCH TREATIES." 

On the 19th of June, the vote was taken and the resolution was rejected by 
7 States against, and 3 States for. 



N* 5. 

At page 42 of the pamphlet containing Gen. Downs' speech at Trinity, are 
found reported in a Memorandum of Dates and Votes in the Senate, two dates 
and two votes exhibiting Mr. Soule's name in italics alongside of the names of 
Messrs. Seward, Hale, Truman Smith and others. 

But for the Italics in these two items alone, Mr. Soule might have overlooked 
the object which the publisher had in view in thus pointing to the strange coinci- 
dence. What strikes more in this underhanded attempt at misrepresentation, 
is the disingenuousness with which the bearing of these two votes is kept in 
the dark and sedulously concealed from the reader. That disingenuousness 
must be unmasked. 

The first vote is that of the 14th of June; on Mr. Turney's proposition "to 
strike out from the Omnibus bill the 39th section," the section dismembering 
Texas of 121 thousand square miles of her territory, thereby taking one-half of 
tdkai WE gained by the Texas Compromise. * Mr. Soule voted yea, and had 
the proposition been carried, Texas would still retain her entire territory and 

* Mr. Dovrat, in hiiipeesh of February 18ih, 1860 



IV 



APPENDIX 



jurisdiction, and the South be spared the necessity of paying her full share of 
ten millions of dollars for tranferring to freesoilism a sufBcient extent of Terri- 
tory to make two free States. Mr. Downs, says liis publisher, voted at, so 
says the Globe. 

The second vote is that of the 31st of July, on Mr. Pierce's amendment, 
striking out the same section. Mr. Soule voted again yea, and tne amend- 
ment being carried, Mr. Pierce was enabled to introduce and Congre -s to pass 
the bill which reduced by upwards of 33 thousand square miles the amputa- 
tion effected on Texas. Mr. Downs voted no. Had Mr. Pierce's amendment 
been lost, the 33 thousand square miles, saved to the South by his subsequent 
bill, would have remained with New Mexico, and therefore , with the freesoil 
interest of the North. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 932 932 2 ♦ 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 932 932 2 



